HEY QUAKE FANS,
We'll be deploying an update for Quake Champions today that will take approximately 4 hours starting at 8AM EST – Noon EST. This is one of our biggest updates to date and adds KEEL as a new champion, the Vale of Pnath as a new Duel Map, Ranked Play, Custom Crosshairs, the Quake 4 Railgun, a ton of balance changes and much more!

If you haven’t already, check out the KEEL Story trailer here:

Also, as soon as the update is completed, it will be the start of a Double XP weekend running until 18.12.17.

WINTER CELEBRATION ITEMS
The Winter Holiday has come to Quake Champions! Players who logs in during December and January will receive free rewards! We have a ton of new holiday items, all of which drop from Backpacks, Crates, and Reliquaries. New Winter items include:

Premium Shader Bundle
This bundle offers 3 new Premium Shaders for each weapon!
Limited time Winter Theme for the Dimension of the Doomed maps, Burial Chamber and Corrupted Keep

NEW CHAMPION
Welcome to the arena heavy weapons specialists Lance Corporal Ben Keel, or at least what’s left of him. Brought back to life thanks to cybernetics and power-armor, Keel is armed to the teeth with two shoulder mounted grenade launchers.

KEEL
RESURRECTED WAR-MACHINE
Health 175
Armor 50/125
Speed 300/480

Active Ability: Grenade Swarm Keel can store and fire up to 5 grenades at a time. Grenades will bounce off the environment, detonating a few seconds later and inflicting splash damage. Direct hits deal 75 damage per grenade. Each grenade refreshes on a 10-second cooldown.

Passive Ability: Stockpile Keel can reduce his ability cooldown by 5% by collecting any ammo box.

NEW ARENA
VALE OF PNATH
ITHAGNAL DUEL MAP Deep within the Netherworld, past the Peaks of Thok, lies this tower of metal and stone. The vault ghouls whisper that the death-maze of sharp angles could only have been hewn from the solid granite by Koth, the Never-Seen Sleeper In Stone. Prepare yourself for the Vale of Pnath.

Designed for Duel and 2v2 TDM, Vale of Pnath is a highly vertical three atrium arena where players will fight for control of both weapons and stack, using the sounds of heavy metal doors to track their enemies movements. Vale provides fun, hectic, and fast paced action for 2 players, but is also available in Custom Game for Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch.

NEW WEAPON
VIOLATOR
QUAKE 4 RAILGUN From the weapons depot of Rhino Squad comes the Quake 4 railgun. Mathew Kane brought this beast of a gun back from Stroggos just so you can assess your aim down its scope. How many can you take down in a single shot?

ADDITIONAL FEATURES
New Ranked Play and Leaderboards for Duel
Added Crosshair Customization: one of the most requested Community features
Choose from over 40 different crosshairs and use a slider to choose your color of choice
Chests & Reliquaries now offer guaranteed rarities!
Chests reward at least one item of Rare quality and above
Reliquaries reward at least one item of Epic quality and above
Rune Challenge Animated Champion Shaders
Each champion now has 5 new animated Champion Shaders which you can earn from completing one of four Elder God rune challenges, and the Master Rune challenge.
Added FPS Limiter in Options
Added Teammate X-ray Outlines Option
Enabled load on demand of geometry for further memory optimization

CHAMPION BALANCE
All Champions

+25 Starting Health Points
+25 Max Armor Points
Champions will now gain some speed by holding forward (except Visor who is too stubborn and set in his ways)
Anarki

Champion Fixes
Fixed issue in Crouch Slide when 1st-person hands animation and audio can remain stuck after slide is interrupted
Fixed issue when some champions may play ability animation and sound effects after their first ability timer had ended
Fixed issue when BJ: Crouch walk posture appears unnatural
Fixed issue for Clutch's Mining Laser secondary ability which stayed in the air if a player died while using it
Fixed issue when Clutch’s Dodge could fail if he touched the stairs
Fixed issued when Doom Slayer could hit with active ability while strafing backwards
Fixed issue for Doom Slayer: Activating Berserk while firing slower weapons delayed bringing up the fists
Fixed issue when champions could play active ability animation twice
Fixed issue when Ranger is able to teleport after Dire Orb has exploded
Fixed issue for Scalebearer ability animation which would break if activated right before landing from a jump
Fixed issue when Some attachments for BJ may disappear from the customization screen after a match

Tech
Fixed issue with incorrect resolution in borderless when trying to set 4k resolution
Fixed issue where Rate of Fire was impacted by FPS
Fixed issue where Voice Chat was triggered while typing in Match Chat

Maps
New breakables for Cthalha maps
New breakables for Ithagnal maps
Closed space around Pillar in Blood Covenant near Quad powerup allows for blind fire and Dire Orb travel to the space below.
Fixed issue when on Burial Chamber Dire Orb could fly for infinite amount of time
Fixed issue where players spawn facing wall on Lockbox
Fixed issue when portal on Lighthouse had no proper collision
Fixed issue when player was able to pierce level geometry with Dire Orb
Closed geometry holes in Church of Azathoth
Fixed issue on Corrupted Keep where a player could get on top of the statues
Fixed issue in Ruins of Sarnath where breakables were missing in DM/TDM
Improved respawn on Blood Covenant
Corrupted Keep: Player can get on top of the head statues above mega
Urns can be broken with Gauntlet
Fixed issue when spectator saw post-match podium geometry
Fixed issue Blood Covenant: Ranger can toss his Dire Orb out a window and use it to teleport later than intended
Fixed issue Blood Run: Cathedral Chamber: Players can get stuck on ledge near Heavy Armor
Fixed issue Blood Run: Railgun spawn point gives less ammo on pickup than other maps on both its first pickup and additional pickups
Fixed issue Tutorial: Heading for Heavy Armor tutorial reads "Light Armor."
Fixed issue Customization: Ranger's torso attachments disappear from the customization screen after a match

UI
Fixed issue where incorrect level showed in duels battle report

Spawn System
Fixed issue Ruins of Sarnath where Opposing Teams may spawn next to each other in Sacrifice Mode
Fixed issue in Church where Opposing Teams may spawn next to each other in Sacrifice Mode

Misc
Fixed issue where Twitch stream didn't load when selected
Addressed multiple instances of medals not being announced on the HUD
Fixed string that did not have localization when adding player to ignore list
Fixed issue in Customization where Users were unable to sell pieces of a Champion’s Costume or sets if they had Attachments unlocked on them
Fixed issue where Enemy and Ally Outline options did not revert back to default
Fixed issue when Australia and Norway flags were unavailable

seems really good, apart from the movement noobification, which I don't think it will help with anything. If there is something that annoys the noobs, it's the insane aim and prediction of good players. That is why they scream aimbot and wallhack. I have never seen a noob say that an opponent uses a movement assistant hack. On the contrary, they are inspired and want to learn how to move like that themselves. If nothing else it might decrease that inspiration...

did anyone ask for the movement changes? Bethesda forums? Some doofus here? Anyone?

I still can't understand why they're sticking with greens and 50 hp megars instead of doing...literally anything else. QW scaled to champion size, q3 pacman style, anything besides greens and hourglasses. It's such a huge part of the game and it feels like an afterthought for tim and friends.

The bunny hop aspect of quake has always been an addictive mechanic for me, its what made me want to play it vs other FPS games, when all I have to do is hold + forward I might aswell play the many other FPS games out there which have much more players.

Before I joined a FFA game last night THUNDA said they broke scale bearer, and I lost by over 20 frags to a player, who no disrespect I usually beat or at least come close to. I'm sure he'll have no issues with truth of that statement.

The movement was horrible and and unlike the performance issues which had finally become manageable, I am reminded for nearly every second I play now of how unsatisfied I am.

All they had to do was fix some of the shit they appear of to have fixed, but they could not resist doing something else which for me is the cut off point.

Tim Willits: Oh, yes. I’ve got a number of reporters who are like, ‘Oh, yeah, but if you add champions, it just ruins Quake. You’re just making a hero shooter.’ And then I go into, no, champions are very additive to the experience, they add more depth and more strategy

Tim Willits: The active abilities of the champions don’t fundamentally change the way you play the game. Like, other hero shooters, for lack of a better description, picking a champion significantly changes the way you play. But in Quake Champions it does not change at its core the way you play.

I've never been a dueller but I think the current stacks and item spawn times are much closer to that ideal, map control, item control, and movement and aim are much more important now than they were.

You're much less likely to get frags just by using an ability now than ever before, the only instant kill abilities are telefrag variants and they're not easy to pull off.
The rest of the offensive abilities aren't much more damaging than a well placed rocket, and are either possible to avoid, predict, or you can outright push the player away.

Scalebearer I haven't formed a full opinion on yet, a few jumps to get to speed then +fwd to go like a train seems ok, it distinguishes the character a little more, but if you can then carry on strafing again to keep the higher speed anyway there's not really any point.

The +fwd bunny hop, the basic idea is good to help the newest players, they did the same for QL for Steam, but the normal movement does feel a bit off for those used to Quake atm so I do hope they work to improve it more.

That's just it. Tim Willits has been saying it won't change the way you play Quake. He's said this whole time it's still Quake, with just additions. The champions don't change the way you play the game, and their abilities and passives add more depth and strategy.

I look at scalebearer now and see a champion that directly contradicts these statements. When in any Quake game has it been viable to simply hold +forward and go faster than any strafe jumping would allow? It's the complete opposite of Quake gameplay.

Anyone saw the Blatzkovic christmas skin? It actually looks like a bright skin and is super visible. I was checking Rapha stream yesterday and it actually looked like a playable game for once with the LG also regging again.

For example, I could finally use rounded up sens & accel values that are nowhere near my actual sens & accel values. Been a long time since I wanted to do that.

Also, before the patch I had shitty stable 125 fps, now I have glorious 70-100 fps, changing each second. Have to say this improves my Quake experience tenfold.

And on top of it all, post-patch strafejumping relates to driving a truck, which is also awesome because I always wanted to participate in Monster Truck Madness events but never had a Monster Truck myself.

I didnt make the gif but that character has an ability to propel it self forward and the extreme speed gain is accomplished by simply crouching mid air while doing that I belive. It works for other characters aswell when using jump pads etc.

This patch for me is bad, it seems like that infamous stuttering problem which has come and gone since day 1 and I made the mistake of assuming this was the changes id did as people were saying it was good, the prev version was good and I could not comprehend they could break it again on what was supposed to be the big patch.

A lot of the time before a FFA game starts, its showing me a view inside the scenery, like the eye on sarnath etc.

When I did a custom game to run around a map, I got this rubber banding.

This is stuff that I have had in the past, then its sorted itself out the next patch.

Last patch for me was generally a good one [best]. but this one, i.e. last week has been ropey.

Would have to have more details about your system, internet connection to take a guess if it's a consistent problem on all servers for you.
I would do the config folder reset thing for sure then reset your settings. The last 2 nvidia drivers have been good for me on a 1060 if you're still on old versions.

SLI users should disable one card.

I've seen sporadic weird slowdown briefly occasionally but overall it's the smoothest version there's been.
Very occasionally i've had a low fps server, on one occasion OBS caused crippling FPS loss (down to 100, then 80, then a flat 60 over one game).